Valley Library plan in a bind

With her mom, Breanna Ahlgren, 9, made checkmarks on a poster at the Valley library branch Thursday. The two were browsing for books when they saw a Spokane County Library District open house in session.

The poster asked questions about how patrons liked the library’s services. Breanna checked “very satisfied” in most categories, until she was asked if parking at the branch was convenient.

“I don’t park,” she said, carefully marking the “Don’t know” box.

By the time the open house was half over, about 40 citizens had attended to hear suggestions and share ideas for future library growth. The district is considering three options: building a new, larger Valley branch somewhere in the Sprague Avenue corridor; moving the Argonne branch south of Trent Avenue; or replacing those branches with three smaller neighborhood libraries.

The district is open to new ideas, too, and several concepts were shared at the meeting. Put a new library in one of Sprague Avenue’s vacant retail buildings. Build a branch at Mirabeau Point Park. Don’t change a thing.

“We want to keep our library right where it’s at,” said Argonne branch patron Brenda Trapp, 44.

The district is continuing the capital facilities planning it began before Spokane Valley incorporated last year. The work was put on hold until the city got on its feet and decided to contract with the district for services. Now, before the City Council embarks on a 2005 contract, it wants to review the district’s plan

But the city will be looking at more than just the district this year. The council voted this week to invite private companies and other public entities to compete for the library services and parks maintenance contracts under a system called “managed competition.” Council members have said they want to find the most cost-effective ways to offer city services.

“Undertaking this is not any way a criticism of the Spokane County parks department or the library district,” Deputy City Manager Nina Regor said. “We just feel it’s in the community’s best interest to weigh our options.”

Still, the decision to allow private companies to compete for the library contract has raised questions – many of which are far from being answered.

First, if a company won the contract, where would it set up a Valley library? District Director Mike Wirt said the current Valley branch, at 12004 E. Main Ave., belongs to the district and is integral to the operations of the district’s nine other branches.

“The way the district has been developed and built has been as a system. It’s all part of the whole,” he said. “It would be really difficult to transfer one part of a collection that was painstakingly built as an entire collection without having a huge impact on the remainder of the district.”

Regor said she didn’t know at this point how the city or a private company would approach acquiring the books, magazines, and library materials – plus a building – if the city severs its ties with the district. She did say, though, that Spokane Valley residents have paid into the district’s investments through property taxes during the past 60 years.

“(Acquiring assets) would just have to be negotiated as part of the process,” Regor said. “I don’t have a feel for how much of their collection they would want to keep.”

Also, would a company ride out difficult economic times or dramatic changes in the market and provide the consistent service that a public agency would?

“Those same types of issues face the public sector as face the private sector,” Regor said. “I would think it would depend on how well established the private sector provider was.”

Then there’s the philosophical question of having a for-profit company run a library, which Wirt called a “cornerstone of democracy.”

“The idea hasn’t been overly popular in the library profession,” he said. “People who work in libraries tend to be passionate about what they’re doing, about the public service aspect of it, about the public’s right to know and the public’s access to information.”

Wirt added, “Some people just don’t feel good about a private, profit-making company coming in to control their services and their access to information.”

Several people at the library’s open house agreed.

“If you privatize, that company has to make a profit,” said Edward Parker, 65, of Spokane County. “How do they make it? By reducing services? By paying employees less?”

But a private library has succeeded in at least one community.

“It’s been very positive here,” said Gary Christmas, county librarian in Riverside County, Calif.

The county awarded a Maryland-based company called Library Systems & Services LLC (LSSI) the library contract in 1997, and has renewed the contract twice since then.

“We feel we can operate more effectively and more efficiently with LSSI,” Christmas said. “We’ve not saved any money. We have the same amount to spend as we had before, but we’ve been able to provide more service with the available dollars.”

That means more librarians helping patrons, longer hours of operation and more books, he said.

The library system in Fargo, N.D., didn’t meet with similar success. Fargo’s library board terminated its contract with LSSI last year, about eight months after renewing it. According to the library board’s meeting minutes, there were concerns about LSSI’s ability to pay bills on time. Officials in Fargo couldn’t be reached for comment, but the American Library Association reported last year that the oversight caused periodical subscriptions to lapse and reflected poorly on the library since bills were paid in its name, not LSSI’s.

LSSI has shown an interest in providing Spokane Valley’s library services. Wirt and his staff gave the company a tour of the district system earlier this year and shared with it information about the district’s operations.

“As a public agency we have to provide access to public records,” Wirt said. He added, though, that giving a competitor such access “isn’t exactly a level playing field.”

“We’re trying to be a partner with the city in providing the best possible service we can,” Wirt said. “When you begin to talk about where it appears to be going now, we do have to sit back. We’re kind of now viewed by the city as a vendor, as opposed to a partner.”

Mayor Mike DeVleming attended Thursday’s open house and read a flip chart with the words “Do not privatize” written repeatedly by different attendees.

“Everybody’s afraid because it’s unknown,” he said. “If it means same services and less money, I bet a lot of people will like that idea.”